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Interesting, but what is the purpose of even spending money to find that out.

I should be a researcher.

Coworker: Hmm do you think if you have to big or to small of a penis and the condom doesn't fit right and is uncomfortable that it's likelier they won't use it?
BMD: Yes that is true they will be more likely not wear something uncomfortable
Coworker: Lets research
BMD: no need to spend the money that's the answer

Interesting, but what is the purpose of even spending money to find that out.

I should be a researcher.

Coworker: Hmm do you think if you have to big or to small of a penis and the condom doesn't fit right and is uncomfortable that it's likelier they won't use it?
BMD: Yes that is true they will be more likely not wear something uncomfortable
Coworker: Lets research
BMD: no need to spend the money that's the answer

The biggest mistake that you can make in research is assuming that common senses true. It is often not. And it didn't cost anything aside from paper to print the surveys on (which had numerous othe questions related to HIV prevention and relationships).

Originally Posted by MrPoon

man with hair like fire can destroy souls with a twitch of his thighs.

I really hate studies based on surveys. Yes, it's completely anonymous, but there is nothing stopping people from lying on surveys for the hell of it. Also, I never really like the sample size problem. Is it 500 people in the same state? What if it's a state isolated phenomenon?

I just hate any kind of "studies" based on surveys. To me, that's not a study, that's looking at a graph that may or may not be accurate or truthful.

I really hate studies based on surveys. Yes, it's completely anonymous, but there is nothing stopping people from lying on surveys for the hell of it. Also, I never really like the sample size problem. Is it 500 people in the same state? What if it's a state isolated phenomenon?

I just hate any kind of "studies" based on surveys. To me, that's not a study, that's looking at a graph that may or may not be accurate or truthful.

I really hate surveys.

This is silly. sure they could lie. But there is plenty of evidence that they don't lie. There are numerous studies where people compare the answers of couples. Verify drug use with biological measures. So even if a small % of people are lieing it doesn't mean that the findings are null and void. You are assuming that the pattern of the nonliars isn't powerful enough to be seen regardless of the lairs... This is what statistics are for.

Yes maybe it is just a new york thing... But why would you think that? IS there a reason to believe that people in New York use condoms differently then they do in Jersey or California. Just saying it is not generalizable is easy... You can ALWAYS say that. But if you don't have a terribly plausible reason to believe things would be different then it's a cop out. It's intellectually lazy.

Originally Posted by MrPoon

man with hair like fire can destroy souls with a twitch of his thighs.

This is silly. sure they could lie. But there is plenty of evidence that they don't lie. There are numerous studies where people compare the answers of couples. Verify drug use with biological measures. So even if a small % of people are lieing it doesn't mean that the findings are null and void. You are assuming that the pattern of the nonliars isn't powerful enough to be seen regardless of the lairs... This is what statistics are for.

Yes maybe it is just a new york thing... But why would you think that? IS there a reason to believe that people in New York use condoms differently then they do in Jersey or California. Just saying it is not generalizable is easy... You can ALWAYS say that. But if you don't have a terribly plausible reason to believe things would be different then it's a cop out. It's intellectually lazy.

I still have a problem with it. Not necessarily this study. Honestly, I don't give a flying fart about the results of this study. Still, I have a huge problem with surveys and statistics gathered from them.

What is the situation in which these questions are asked? On a piece of paper, or are they asked by somebody? Being asked a question such as, "Have you ever cheated on your wife?" It doesn't matter if the interviewer is a complete stranger or your best friend, people are going to be reticent to answer honestly. Even on confidential surveys in which the answers are on paper and answers written in, there's always the question of just how anonymous it is. Handwriting, who you hand it off to and what they do with it immediately after receiving it... There are trust issues no matter how the questions are asked and answered.

Set questions with set answers. Yes or no when elaboration might be very necessary. For example, as a hypothetical survey:

Have you ever owned a dog? Well, what if the person was in a house with a dog, but the dog was technically the person's sister's dog? That's just a hypothetical question to show that the type of possible answers can be limited and can have an impact on the truthfulness of the response.

Sample size.

Where the survey was taken.

How long is the survey? Is it a quick three minute survey, or is it a longer thirty minute survey? I remember going in to watch a trailer as a part of a screening and I got to watch a trailer for a really awful-looking film with Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson among others, and it was clearly not my genre. Furthermore, I am a film student, and there was no such question about the knowledge on the subject. When I took the survey, my answers were typed out by another person. I said some words such as cliche, redundant, bad script etc... The person typing out the answers spelled cliche as, "Clee-shey." Literally, that's how he spelled it. He was typing so slowly as if he had never seen a keyboard in his entire life, so I didn't say anything, and that impacted the perceived intelligence of the survey. Not only that, but I was with friends and I wanted to get out of there, so I sped up the survey so it would end quicker, and I answered the same, "Sub-par" response for about nineteen questions in a row, even though some questions were about what I thought of the actors individually. The awful typing and length of the survey caused me to state that I thought of Jack Nicholson as a sub-par actor.

Types of people in the survey. There are very serious differences between the lifestyles of college students, single men as opposed to men in a relationship and same with women. Religion, age, sex, gender, sexual preference, height, weight, appearance, upbringing, place of birth, location...

Who is allowed to take part in this survey? What if the people taking the survey want a specific result, so they scout their survey-takers? Looking for America's Team? What if they only ask individuals in Wisconsin. Who is allowed to take the survey has a huge impact.

Who WANTS to take the survey? If the survey is about bird watching, there is a select few who want to be asked questions about a hobby they may have no interest in, so the results could be skewed because of who WANTS to take the survey.

Sate of the survey: Phone call, on the street, letters...

Is the survey paid?

If it is a phone survey, how do they select the numbers?

There are so many hundreds of variables that can lead to an unreliable result. Surveys are worthless in my opinion.

I still have a problem with it. Not necessarily this study. Honestly, I don't give a flying fart about the results of this study. Still, I have a huge problem with surveys and statistics gathered from them.

What is the situation in which these questions are asked? On a piece of paper, or are they asked by somebody? Being asked a question such as, "Have you ever cheated on your wife?" It doesn't matter if the interviewer is a complete stranger or your best friend, people are going to be reticent to answer honestly. Even on confidential surveys in which the answers are on paper and answers written in, there's always the question of just how anonymous it is. Handwriting, who you hand it off to and what they do with it immediately after receiving it... There are trust issues no matter how the questions are asked and answered.

Set questions with set answers. Yes or no when elaboration might be very necessary. For example, as a hypothetical survey:

Have you ever owned a dog? Well, what if the person was in a house with a dog, but the dog was technically the person's sister's dog? That's just a hypothetical question to show that the type of possible answers can be limited and can have an impact on the truthfulness of the response.

Sample size.

Where the survey was taken.

How long is the survey? Is it a quick three minute survey, or is it a longer thirty minute survey? I remember going in to watch a trailer as a part of a screening and I got to watch a trailer for a really awful-looking film with Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson among others, and it was clearly not my genre. Furthermore, I am a film student, and there was no such question about the knowledge on the subject. When I took the survey, my answers were typed out by another person. I said some words such as cliche, redundant, bad script etc... The person typing out the answers spelled cliche as, "Clee-shey." Literally, that's how he spelled it. He was typing so slowly as if he had never seen a keyboard in his entire life, so I didn't say anything, and that impacted the perceived intelligence of the survey. Not only that, but I was with friends and I wanted to get out of there, so I sped up the survey so it would end quicker, and I answered the same, "Sub-par" response for about nineteen questions in a row, even though some questions were about what I thought of the actors individually. The awful typing and length of the survey caused me to state that I thought of Jack Nicholson as a sub-par actor.

Types of people in the survey. There are very serious differences between the lifestyles of college students, single men as opposed to men in a relationship and same with women. Religion, age, sex, gender, sexual preference, height, weight, appearance, upbringing, place of birth, location...

Who is allowed to take part in this survey? What if the people taking the survey want a specific result, so they scout their survey-takers? Looking for America's Team? What if they only ask individuals in Wisconsin. Who is allowed to take the survey has a huge impact.

Who WANTS to take the survey? If the survey is about bird watching, there is a select few who want to be asked questions about a hobby they may have no interest in, so the results could be skewed because of who WANTS to take the survey.

Sate of the survey: Phone call, on the street, letters...

Is the survey paid?

If it is a phone survey, how do they select the numbers?

There are so many hundreds of variables that can lead to an unreliable result. Surveys are worthless in my opinion.

you have a right to your opinion. Yet surveys can be compiled and used to predict the presidential election perfectly.

Yes there are alot of variables that could be different but just cause they could doesn't mean they are or even that it would make sense for them to be different. You bring up a lot of points that in most situations are irrelevant. I tell my students if you are going to criticize it's best to know how you think the survey would be different given your perceived flaws. Saying this is skewed because it was on the street instead of over the phone, or in new york instead of florida the next thing is that they should be able to say it would be different because _______. Otherwise the criticism is completely irrelevant to the question at hand.

Any scientist worth their salt addresses weaknesses in their papers, they do whatever they can to help insure honest answers, address why they chose the population they did.

The present study was done with highly sexually active gay men. Why? Because they are at the greatest risk for HIV. The researchers would not claim this necessarily relates to straight dudes. Or Gay men in monogamous relationships for that matter.

Originally Posted by MrPoon

man with hair like fire can destroy souls with a twitch of his thighs.

How about: Developing more effective strategies in the prevention of disease and unwanted pregnancies?

Oh i'm all for that, it just seems like this is silly and blatantly obvious that they would be more likely not to wear them if they are uncomfortable. Flips kind of explained why they did it basically saying some of the most obvious outcomes fail to become an outcome which is why you research it, but this still seems silly to me.

And them figuring this out still doesn't do a thing to develop more effective strategies in the prevention of disease and unwanted pregnancies.

Sure it does, if they manufacture and distribute appropriately sized condums, and that in turn leads to increased usage.

Agreed and i'm not arguing that, in fact I propose that as well. But doing a study to find out we need to do that, seems like a waste to me. They should have been producing the different sizes all along.

I still have a problem with it. Not necessarily this study. Honestly, I don't give a flying fart about the results of this study. Still, I have a huge problem with surveys and statistics gathered from them.

What is the situation in which these questions are asked? On a piece of paper, or are they asked by somebody? Being asked a question such as, "Have you ever cheated on your wife?" It doesn't matter if the interviewer is a complete stranger or your best friend, people are going to be reticent to answer honestly. Even on confidential surveys in which the answers are on paper and answers written in, there's always the question of just how anonymous it is. Handwriting, who you hand it off to and what they do with it immediately after receiving it... There are trust issues no matter how the questions are asked and answered.

Set questions with set answers. Yes or no when elaboration might be very necessary. For example, as a hypothetical survey:

Have you ever owned a dog? Well, what if the person was in a house with a dog, but the dog was technically the person's sister's dog? That's just a hypothetical question to show that the type of possible answers can be limited and can have an impact on the truthfulness of the response.

Sample size.

Where the survey was taken.

How long is the survey? Is it a quick three minute survey, or is it a longer thirty minute survey? I remember going in to watch a trailer as a part of a screening and I got to watch a trailer for a really awful-looking film with Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson among others, and it was clearly not my genre. Furthermore, I am a film student, and there was no such question about the knowledge on the subject. When I took the survey, my answers were typed out by another person. I said some words such as cliche, redundant, bad script etc... The person typing out the answers spelled cliche as, "Clee-shey." Literally, that's how he spelled it. He was typing so slowly as if he had never seen a keyboard in his entire life, so I didn't say anything, and that impacted the perceived intelligence of the survey. Not only that, but I was with friends and I wanted to get out of there, so I sped up the survey so it would end quicker, and I answered the same, "Sub-par" response for about nineteen questions in a row, even though some questions were about what I thought of the actors individually. The awful typing and length of the survey caused me to state that I thought of Jack Nicholson as a sub-par actor.

Types of people in the survey. There are very serious differences between the lifestyles of college students, single men as opposed to men in a relationship and same with women. Religion, age, sex, gender, sexual preference, height, weight, appearance, upbringing, place of birth, location...

Who is allowed to take part in this survey? What if the people taking the survey want a specific result, so they scout their survey-takers? Looking for America's Team? What if they only ask individuals in Wisconsin. Who is allowed to take the survey has a huge impact.

Who WANTS to take the survey? If the survey is about bird watching, there is a select few who want to be asked questions about a hobby they may have no interest in, so the results could be skewed because of who WANTS to take the survey.

Sate of the survey: Phone call, on the street, letters...

Is the survey paid?

If it is a phone survey, how do they select the numbers?

There are so many hundreds of variables that can lead to an unreliable result. Surveys are worthless in my opinion.

There are so many hundreds of variables that can lead to an unreliable result. Surveys are worthless in my opinion.

In the opinion of those whose career prospects and futures depend on being able to predict the future, like politicians, this is not true. The same goes for commercial retailers who rely partially on surveys to choose what products to sell. They're a tool like anything else. They have their uses. Personally, I can't think of a better way to inquire into the hypothesis that penis size impacts condom use.* Can you?

* In science, common sense, AKA what I am guessing is most likely without looking at data, is called a hypothesis. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny without a further exploration and some data to back it. Just assuming a hypothesis is true, AKA going with your gut, is frowned upon as a basis for making health policy.

1 Kings 11:3: “He (Solomon) had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.” -- Biblical marriage. One man, seven hundred women.

In the opinion of those whose career prospects and futures depend on being able to predict the future, like politicians, this is not true. The same goes for commercial retailers who rely partially on surveys to choose what products to sell. They're a tool like anything else. They have their uses. Personally, I can't think of a better way to inquire into the hypothesis that penis size impacts condom use.* Can you?

* In science, common sense, AKA what I am guessing is most likely without looking at data, is called a hypothesis. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny without a further exploration and some data to back it. Just assuming a hypothesis is true, AKA going with your gut, is frowned upon as a basis for making health policy.